3500 W. River
Road
Thursday, May 31,
2007
8:00 a.m.
The following is a summary of the May 31, 2007
meeting. Audiotapes of the meeting are
available upon request.
|
Committee Members Present |
Committee Members Absent |
|
Gary Davidson, Chair John Neis Terri Hutts Thomas Six Jaret Barr (for City of Tucson) |
Byron Howard Carolyn Campbell Tom Warne |
|
County Staff: Technical Experts Present |
County Administration |
|
Carlo DiPilato,
P&D Division Manager Lauren Harvey,
Program Manager, NRPR |
Nicole Fyffe,
Executive Assistant to the County Administrator |
1. Meeting began at 8:05 a.m. with a
quorum.
2. Ms.
Hutts made a motion to approve, with corrections, the minutes of the last
meeting held on May 3, 2007, which was seconded by Mr. Six. The motion was unanimously
accepted.
3. Mr. DiPilato reviewed all the projects in
District 4, including their scope. The following point was raised with regard to
the projects concerning reclaimed water. Mr. Davidson inquired why these
projects were included in the Parks Sub Committee. He was advised that these projects management responsibilities
would eventually lie with Natural Resources, thus the projects were included.
Also, some of these projects do not have water rights and reclaimed water would
allow for re-vegetation of former farmland with native plants especially in
riparian areas.
Mr. Davidson also wishes to know
which projects were moved to the Parks & Recreation sub-committee and from which
jurisdiction the projects belong to.
The project FC-46, Reclaimed water
for Canoa Ranch, can be removed from the project list as it is included in the
scope of project PR80 Canoa Ranch Historic Interpretive Center. The project PR241, Empire High School
Community Pool and Civic Center, can also be removed from the project list as
it is included the Public Works Sub-committee project list. Mr. Neis also made
an interesting observation that the lower a project’s priority, the more
criteria it apparently filled, which lead Mr. Davidson to remind the
sub-committee that just because some project was prioritized as a B did not
mean it was not a worthy project and that the committee would have to keep that
in mind when making their decisions.
4. Jurisdictional
comments about PC BOS District 4 projects:
Ms. Debby Summers,
Parks & Recreation Director, Town of Sahuarita, introduced speakers on
behalf of the Town – Mr. John Sullivan, Councilman, Mr. Ken Ventura, Project
Manager, Mr. Dane Woll, President & CEO of Metro Tucson YMCA along with
Anthony Wright of the YMCA’s Program Development. Mr. Sullivan spoke about the Town’s only project which is the
Sahuarita Pool and Recreation Complex.
The land has already been acquired by the Town. In 2004 the Town conducted its first survey
and one of the highest rated needs was for a pool and recreational area. The
Town went through a masterplanning process with plenty of community input which
would include soccer fields and an aquatic and recreation complex. This part of the plan envisions both a
competition pool in view of the high school being upgraded, and a recreational
one as well with zero entry depth, splash park, Mr. Sullivan also said that it
was clear that the public wanted indoor recreational facilities as well, and so
a 30,000 foot multigenerational recreation center is being planned. The Town is growing extremely fast from
3,000 people to over 12,000 today, and is estimated to be 30,000 by 2012. This
does not count the usage by people living in Green Valley who also make use of
the Town’s amenities. In 2006 the Town conducted another survey in which it
found that the people wanted one multiuse facility with walking, jogging,
aerobics and cardio facilities, arts, crafts and teen center space available. 85%
of the Town feels that Parks & Recreation is critical for the well being of
the town. There is strong support for
this project from all sections of the community and the Town has forged a
working relationship with the YMCA. Mr.
Sullivan thanked the Sub-committee and was followed by Mr. Dane Woll of the
YMCA who said that they had served 53,000 members and another140,000
participants. The board of the Y is looking for ways to partner with fast
growing communities to extend Y programs.
Mr. Woll also said that the one time Bond funding would allow the
operation of the facility over the next 50 years. As an example he offered the NW-YMCA project funded by the 1997
Bond with 16,000 participants and plenty of pool use. Because the costs are shared, the pool is open throughout the
year. The Y funds equipment and
replacement equipment costs, utilities, and other operating costs. Mr. Woll
reiterated that this is a project that certainly merits consideration. Mr. Woll was asked whether this project too
would be run along the same lines and he assured the sub-committee that that
would be the case.
Ms. Sandra Stone, spoke
on behalf of Green Valley projects and the Canoa Master Plan which is available
online. She emphasized that this plan
is very important to educate the public about the history of Southern Arizona
and that there would be several economic benefits as well as this is located in
the Santa Cruz Valley Heritage Area. The plan has also been accepted by the
Board of Supervisors.
Mr. Chuck Catino, Past President
of BAJA Senior Sports Complex spoke of the need to fund this project on which
they have been working on since 1996.
There are no parks in Green Valley.
The closest is in the Town of Sahuarita. BAJA Sports is a group of about
115 senior softball players and also have 560 members. They hold national wide
softball tournaments. This would be the only park in Green Valley, it would be
maintained by both Parks & Recreation and BAJA as a team. The land which is 57 acres is being donated.
There is also a 100’x100’ parcel with a well belonging to FICCO who they are
working with to have the parcel donated.
That would allow Parks & Recreation to buy the water rights as well.
Mr. Catino was also asked about whether the fields would need lighting. He said that there was no need for it at the
moment, but Mr. Davidson said he would prefer if the plans had lighting subbed
out. Mr. Catino said this would allow the reclamation of a negatively impacted
site which is a mine pit, attract state and nation wide senior softball tournaments
year round. At present his group rents
field from the City since the County does not have sufficient fields. The group brings 55 women’s and 50 men’s
teams aged 55 and over, from across the
country to play here.
Mr. David Erickson, President
of BAJA spoke on behalf of the project as well saying that this would benefit
not only Green Valley but Amado and Arivaca as well. He spoke of the team’s volunteer umpiring over 150 little league
teams and girls softball games in the past two months.
Mr. David Blouin spoke
on behalf of the Canoa Preserve Development Partners and their donation of the
land. They have completed a boundary
survey, topo and aerial mapping, biological survey, environmental survey,
initiated the project master plan and will complete the grading, drainage
and hydrology. Any offsite upgrades to utilities will be done as well.
Mr. Fred Gray, Parks
& Recreation, City of Tucson, said that Jesse Owens Park and Purple Heart
are eligible for impact fees, which is not mentioned as they have not been
collected as yet.
Also, the Esmond Station Project at the SERP will probably have the name
changed to Esmond Station so it is not confused with the County’s Southeast
Regional Park. The projects in District 4 total about 15 million dollars. About 20% of the city’s unmet needs are
within District 4. Also some of the
city-wide projects are also here.
Several smaller projects that were consolidated are also in the area.
There are also some land acquisition and river parks in Ward 4.
Rosemary McCain, Vail School District has
lived in Vail for 17 years and she has watched Vail start with one school with
500 students to 14 schools serving 9,000 students, with 3 more in the planning
stage. Since Vail is still
unincorporated, they have no town council and rely on the county and city to
represent them along with a very active community and she urged the committee
to consider their projects.
Mr. Tom Ellis, Parks & Recreation Director of
the Town of Marana returned to speak about the water plans for the BOR park
from the last meeting. Mr. Ellis reminded the sub-committee that the BOR park
which will cover 500 acres and have 18 softball fields spread out over about 92
acres. The BOR park is a basin and
accepts surface run off from the northern edge of the Tucson Mountains, also
from a 2500 home subdivision is being developed. So roughly 1000 acre-feet of water runs through the area, and
staff is looking to capture that runoff by building irrigation ponds and use it
to supplement what would be untreated CAP water or irrigation water. The water
that would not be used would be used to supplement the non-potable water for
Marana to irrigate landscaping. Mr. Ellis believes that this would satisfy
approximately 75% of the total turf needs, economically and would also be used
in the community.
5. Public comments about PC BOS District 4
projects
Marty O’Shea,
Deputy Administrator, Tanque Verde School District: Spoke in favor of the Emily
Gray Junior High School, Tanque Verde and Agua Caliente Elementary Schools and
the Lew Sorenson Community Center.
Patrick McKenna, who
works for Supervisor Ray Carroll and wanted to thank the committee for the
great job they are doing. Mr. McKenna explained that Supervisor Carroll takes a
different approach and asks for community input before making decisions on
projects in his district. Also, the
community is very vast, ranging from Tanque Verde in the North to Vail and
Green Valley in the south.
6. Other
Business, Future Agenda Items and Meeting Dates
Mr. Davidson reminded the committee that the next
meeting would be the last of reviewing projects and that the meeting following
the committee will start deciding priorities. Also, the person representing
each district should take the lead in prioritizing that district’s
projects. He thought the sub-committee
would start with District 1 and continue and also have several tiers of
priorities that would be more county wide after the first group. Mr. Davidson
also requested a large map of each district which could be used at the meetings
with removable markers that would show the locations as well. Mr. Davidson was also asked about how many
projects may be funded and he explained that it would depend on the allocation
of bond money received by Parks and that he expected at least 80% of the
project to not get funding.
7. Meeting
Adjourned at 9:55 a.m.